What Is HD?

Huntington’s disease (HD) is a fatal genetic disorder that causes the progressive breakdown of nerve cells in the brain. It deteriorates a person’s physical and mental abilities usually during their prime working years and has no cure.

Find Help

Locate HDSA Chapters and Affiliates, Support Groups, Social Workers, and Centers of Excellence in your area as well as additional local medical, legal, social, and therapeutic resources for people with HD and their families.

HD Research

Since 1999, the Huntington’s Disease Society of America has committed more than $20 million to fund research, with the goal of finding effective treatments to slow Huntington’s disease. Our research efforts have helped to increase the number of scientists working on HD and have shed light on many of the complex biological mechanisms involved.

Healthcare Professional resources

This section includes online courses for physicians, social workers and therapists who care for people with HD at the local level. Courses deal with cognitive, physical, therapeutic, technological and legal HD issues among other topics. This section also includes reference materials in video and PDF format for Social Workers on HD issues listed by varied categories.

GET INVOLVED

When Marjorie Guthrie founded our organization in 1967, her vow was to “do something” about this devastating disease. Today we continue her legacy by bringing together the entire community to provide help and hope to all families affected by Huntington’s disease. Listed here are some of the ways you can get involved in the fight against HD.

Annual CHDI Huntington’s Disease Therapeutics Conference

This week in Palm Springs, California, CHDI Foundation hosted the 14th Annual HD Therapeutics Conference. This yearly conference draws academic and industry researchers from all over the world to share their work about Huntington’s disease and participate in discussions about the latest in HD drug discovery. HD Buzz live-tweeted the entire 3-day conference in real time on their webpage. You can read about the all the talks presented on Day 1, Day 2, and Day 3.

The CHDI conference is tailored towards scientists and clinicians, but these resources are a fabulous way to stay in the loop about current drug development for HD and the ideas that will drive the therapies of tomorrow.

Could Cancer Drugs Help with HD?

Berman-Topper fellow Dr. Tamara Maiuri blogs about her HDSA-funded research project. This week, she shares some recent work and speculates about recent findings that could have implications around the use of cancer drugs for HD.